Remember that Revenge of the Nerds was written by the cool kids.
The cool kids want power, so they assume that the nerds must want power. It's why Kelly has such an easy time imagining this as a power struggle between her and Fauci.
But, to nerds, that's just a political question. To them, if you want to eradicate polio, you need data and vaccines. Power struggles happen, but they are unfortunate.
From this point of view, Kelly's opinion about covid transmission is about as useful as Kelly's opinion about automotive transmissions. She doesn't have the data or the expertise necessary to be helpful with either.